CHAPTER XLVIII.

Currency.--Lincoln.--Forms of Government.--The

Draft.--Slavery.--Human Progress.--Independence.--

Republicanism and Democracy.--The Rebellion.--Protection

and Free Trade.--Radicalism.--Education.--Reconstruction.--

William H. Seward.--Fourteenth Amendment.--Classical

Studies.--History.--Law.--Liberty.--Statistical

Science.--Poverty.--Growth.--Ethics.--The Salary

Clause.--The Railway Problem.--Church and State.--

Courage.--Art.--Literature.--Character.--Public

Opinion.--The Revenue.--Statesmanship.--Science.--

Truth.--Elements of Success.--Suffrage.--Gustave

Schleicher.--Appeal to Young Men.--The Union.--Inaugural.

[Speech on the Currency.--46th Congress.]

No man can doubt that within recent years, and notably within recent

months, the leading thinkers of the civilized world have become alarmed

at the attitude of the two precious metals in relation to each other;

and many leading thinkers are becoming clearly of the opinion that, by

some wise, judicious arrangement, both the precious metals must be kept

in service for the currency of the world. And this opinion has been very

rapidly gaining ground within the past six months to such an extent,

that England, which for more than half a century has stoutly adhered to

the single gold standard, is now seriously meditating how she may

harness both these metals to the monetary car of the world. And yet

outside of this capital, I do not this day know of a single great and

recognized advocate of bi-metallic money who regards it prudent or safe

for any nation largely to increase the coinage standard of silver at the

present time beyond the limits fixed by existing laws.... Yet we, who

during the past two years have coined far more silver dollars than we

ever before coined since the foundation of the Government; ten times as

many as we coined during half a century of our national life; are to-day

ignoring and defying the enlightened universal opinion of bi-metallism,

and saying that the United States, single-handed and alone, can enter

the field and settle the mighty issue. We are justifying the old proverb

that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread." It is sheer madness,

Mr. Speaker. I once saw a dog on a great stack of hay that had been

floated out into the wild overflowed stream of a river, with its

stack-pen and foundation still holding together, but ready to be

wrecked. For a little while the animal appeared to be perfectly happy.

His hay-stack was there, and the pen around it, and he seemed to think

the world bright and his happiness secure, while the sunshine fell

softly on his head and hay. But by and by he began to discover that the

house and the barn, and their surroundings were not all there, as they

were when he went to sleep the night before; and he began to see that he

could not command all the prospect, and peacefully dominate the scene as

he had done before.

So with this House. We assume to manage this mighty question which has

been launched on the wild current that sweeps over the whole world, and

we bark from our legislative hay-stacks as though we commanded the whole

world. In the name of common sense and sanity, let us take some account

of the flood; let us understand that a deluge means something, and try

if we can to get our bearings before we undertake to settle the affairs

of all mankind by a vote of this House. To-day we are coining one-third

of all the silver that is being coined in the round world. China is

coining another third; and all other nations are using the remaining

one-third for subsidiary coin. And if we want to take rank with China,

and part company with all of the civilized nations of the Western world,

let us pass this bill, and then "bay the moon" as we float down the

whirling channel to take our place among the silver mono-metallists of

Asia.

[Letter to B. A. Kimball.]

COLUMBUS, OHIO, February 16, 1861.

Mr. Lincoln has come and gone. The rush of people to see him at every

point on the route is astonishing. The reception here was plain and

republican, but very impressive. He has been raising a respectable pair

of dark-brown whiskers, which decidedly improve his looks, but no

appendage can ever render him remarkable for beauty. On the whole, I am

greatly pleased with him. He clearly shows his want of culture, and the

marks of western life; but there is no touch of affectation in him, and

he has a peculiar power of impressing you that he is frank, direct, and

thoroughly honest. His remarkable good sense, simple and condensed style

of expression, and evident marks of indomitable will, give me great

hopes for the country. And, after the long, dreary period of Buchanan's

weakness and cowardly imbecility, the people will hail a strong and

vigorous leader.

[To the Same.]

A monarchy is more easily overthrown than a republic, because its

sovereignty is concentrated, and a single blow, if it be powerful

enough, will crush it.

As an abstract theory, the doctrine of Free Trade seems to be

universally true, but as a question of practicability, under a

government like ours, the protective system seems to be indispensable.

[Speech on a Draft Bill, June 21, 1864.]

It has never been my policy to conceal a truth _merely_ because it is

unpleasant. It may be well to smile in the face of danger, but it is

neither well nor wise to let danger approach unchallenged and

unannounced. A brave nation, like a brave man, desires to see and

measure the perils which threaten it. It is the right of the American

people to know the necessities of the Republic when they are called upon

to make sacrifices for it. It is this lack of confidence in ourselves

and the people, this timid waiting for events to control us when they

should obey us, that makes men oscillate between hope and fear; now in

the sunshine of the hill-tops, and now in the gloom and shadows of the

valley. To such men the bulletin which heralds success in the army gives

exultation and high hope; the evening dispatch, announcing some slight

disaster to our advancing columns, brings gloom and depression. Hope

rises and falls by the accidents of war, as the mercury of the

thermometer changes by the accidents of heat and cold. Let us rather

take for our symbol the sailor's barometer, which faithfully forewarns

him of the tempest, and gives him unerring promise of serene skies and

peaceful seas.

[Speech in New York City, 1865, on the Assassination of President

Lincoln.]

By this last act of madness, it seems as though the Rebellion had

determined that the President of the soldiers should go with the

soldiers who have laid down their lives on the battle-field. They slew

the noblest and gentlest heart that ever put down a rebellion upon this

earth. In taking that life they have left "the iron" hand of the people

to fall upon them. Love is on the front of the throne of God, but

justice and judgment, with inexorable dread, follow behind; and where

law is slighted and mercy despised, when they have rejected those who

would be their best friends, then comes justice with her hoodwinked eye,

and with the sword and scales. From every gaping wound of your dead

chief, let the voice go up for the people to see to it that our house is

swept and garnished. I hasten to say one thing more. For mere vengeance

I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge.

But for security of the future I would do everything.

[Speech in Congress on the Constitutional Amendment to abolish slavery,

January 13, 1865]

On the 21st day of June, 1788, our national sovereignty was lodged, by

the people, in the Constitution of the United States, where it still

resides, and for its preservation our armies are to-day in the field. In

all these stages of development, from colonial dependence to full-orbed

nationality, the people, not the States, have been omnipotent. _They_

have abolished, established, altered, and amended, as suited their

sovereign pleasure. _They_ made the Constitution. That great charter

tells its own story best:

"We, _the people_ of the United States, in order to form a

more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic

tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the

general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to

ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this

Constitution for the United States of America."

* * * * *

That Constitution, with its amendments, is the latest and the greatest

utterance of American sovereignty. The hour is now at hand when that

majestic sovereign, for the benignant purpose of securing still farther

the 'blessings of liberty,' is about to put forth another oracle; is

about to declare that universal freedom shall be the supreme law of the

land. Show me the power that is authorized to forbid it.... They made

the Constitution what it is. They could have made it otherwise then:

they can make it otherwise now.

* * * * *

In the very crisis of our fate, God brought us face to face with the

alarming truth, that we must lose our own freedom, or grant it to the

slave. In the extremity of our distress, we called upon the black man to

help us save the Republic, and amidst the very thunder of battle we made

a covenant with him, sealed both with his blood and ours, and witnessed

by Jehovah, that when the nation was redeemed, he should be free, and

share with us the glories and blessings of freedom. In the solemn words

of the great proclamation of emancipation, we not only declared the

slaves forever free, but we pledged the faith of the nation "to maintain

their freedom"--mark the words, "_to maintain their freedom_." The

Omniscient witness will appear in judgment against us if we do not

fulfil that covenant. Have we done it? Have we given freedom to the

black man? What is freedom? Is it a mere negation? the bare privilege of

not being chained, bought, and sold, branded, and scourged? If this be

all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion, and it may well

be questioned whether slavery were not better.

But liberty is no negation. It is a substantive, tangible reality. It

is the realization of those imperishable truths of the Declaration,

"that all men are created equal," that the sanction of all just

government is "the consent of the governed." Can these truths be

realized until each man has a right to be heard on all matters relating

to himself?

Mr. Speaker, we did more than merely to break off the chains of the

slaves. The abolition of slavery added four million citizens to the

Republic. By the decision of the Supreme Court, by the decision of the

attorney-general, by the decision of all the departments of our

government, those men made free are, by the act of freedom, made

citizens.

* * * * *

If they are to be disfranchised, if they are to have no voice in

determining the conditions under which they are to live and labor, what

hope have they for the future? It will rest with their late masters,

whose treason they aided to thwart, to determine whether negroes shall

be permitted to hold property, to enjoy the benefits of education, to

enforce contracts, to have access to the courts of justice--in short, to

enjoy any of those rights which give vitality and value to freedom. Who

can fail to foresee the ruin and misery that await this race to whom the

vision of freedom has been presented only to be withdrawn, leaving them

without even the aid which the master's selfish, commercial interest in

their life and service formerly afforded them? Will these negroes,

remembering the battle-fields on which nearly two hundred thousand of

their number have so bravely fought, and many thousands have heroically

died, submit to oppression as tamely and peaceably as in the days of

slavery? Under such conditions there could be no peace, no security, no

prosperity. The spirit of slavery is still among us; it must be utterly

destroyed before we shall be safe.

* * * * *

Mr. Speaker, I know of nothing more dangerous to a Republic than to put

into its very midst four million people, stripped of every attribute of

citizenship, robbed of the right of representation, but bound to pay

taxes to the government. If they can endure it, we can not. The murderer

is to be pitied more than the murdered man; the robber more than the

robbed. And we who defraud four million citizens of their rights are

injuring ourselves vastly more than we are injuring the black man whom

we rob.

* * * * *

Throughout the whole web of national existence we trace the golden

thread of human progress toward a higher and better estate.

* * * * *

The life and light of a nation are inseparable.

* * * * *

We confront the dangers of suffrage by the blessings of universal

education.

* * * * *

We should do nothing inconsistent with the spirit and genius of our

institutions. We should do nothing for revenge, but everything for

security: nothing for the past; everything for the present and future.

* * * * *

There are two classes of forces whose action and reaction determine the

condition of a nation--the forces of Repression and Expression. The one

acts from without; limits, curbs, restrains. The other acts from within;

expands, enlarges, propels. Constitutional forms, statutory limitations,

conservative customs, belong to the first. The free play of individual

life, opinion, and action, belong to the second. If these forces be

happily balanced, if there be a wise conservation and correlation of

both, a nation may enjoy the double blessing of progress and permanence.

* * * * *

It matters little what may be the forms of National institutions, if the

life, freedom, and growth of society are secured.

* * * * *

There is no horizontal stratification of society in this country like

the rocks in the earth, that hold one class down below forevermore, and

let another come to the surface to stay there forever. Our

stratification is like the ocean, where every individual drop is free

to move, and where from the sternest depths of the mighty deep any drop

may come up to glitter on the highest wave that rolls.

* * * * *

The Union and the Congress must share the same fate. They must rise or

fall together.

* * * * *

Real political issues cannot be manufactured by the leaders of political

parties, and real ones cannot be evaded by political parties. The real

political issues of the day declare themselves and come out of the depth

of that deep which we call public opinion. The nation has a life of its

own as distinctly defined as the life of an individual. The signs of its

growth and the periods of its development make issues declare

themselves; and the man or the political party that does not discover

this, has not learned the character of the nation's life.

[Reply to Mr. Lamar, in a Committee of the Whole.]

Mr. Chairman, great ideas travel slowly, and for a time noiselessly, as

the gods, whose feet were shod with wool. Our war of independence was a

war of ideas, of ideas evolved out of two hundred years of slow and

silent growth. When, one hundred years ago, our fathers announced as

self-evident truths the declaration that all men are created equal, and

the only just power of governments is derived from the consent of the

governed, they uttered a doctrine that no nation had ever adopted, that

not one kingdom on the earth then believed. Yet to our fathers it was so

plain that they would not debate it. They announced it as a truth

"self-evident."

Whence came the immortal truths of the Declaration? To me this was for

years the riddle of our history. I have searched long and patiently

through the books of the _doctrinaires_ to find the germs from which the

Declaration of Independence sprang. I find hints in Locke, in Hobbes, in

Rousseau, and Fenelon; but they were only the hints of dreamers and

philosophers. The great doctrines of the Declaration germinated in the

hearts of our fathers, and were developed under the new influences of

this wilderness world, by the same subtile mystery which brings forth

the rose from the germ of the rose-tree. Unconsciously to themselves,

the great truths were growing under the new conditions, until, like the

century-plant, they blossomed into the matchless beauty of the

Declaration of Independence, whose fruitage, increased and increasing,

we enjoy to-day.

* * * * *

It will not do, Mr. Chairman, to speak of the gigantic revolution

through which we have lately passed as a thing to be adjusted and

settled by a change of administration. It was cyclical, epochal,

century-wide, and to be studied in its broad and grand perspective--a

revolution of even wider scope, so far as time is concerned, than the

Revolution of 1776. We have been dealing with elements and forces which

have been at work on this continent more than two hundred and fifty

years. I trust I shall be excused if I take a few moments to trace some

of the leading phases of the great struggle. And in doing so, I beg

gentlemen to see that the subject itself lifts us into a region where

the individual sinks out of sight and is absorbed in the mighty current

of great events. It is not the occasion to award praise or pronounce

condemnation. In such a revolution men are like insects that fret and

toss in the storm, but are swept onward by the resistless movements of

elements beyond their control. I speak of this revolution not to praise

the men who aided it, or to censure the men who resisted it, but as a

force to be studied, as a mandate to be obeyed.

In the year 1620 there were planted upon this continent two ideas

irreconcilably hostile to each other. Ideas are the great warriors of

the world; and a war that has no ideas behind it is simply brutality.

The two ideas were landed, one at Plymouth Rock, from the _Mayflower_,

and the other from a Dutch brig at Jamestown, Virginia. One was the old

doctrine of Luther, that private judgment, in politics as well as

religion, is the right and duty of every man; and the other, that

capital should own labor, that the negro had no rights of manhood, and

the white man might justly buy, own, and sell him and his offspring

forever. Thus freedom and equality on the one hand, and on the other the

slavery of one race and the domination of another, were the two germs

planted on this continent. In our vast expanse of wilderness, for a long

time, there was room for both; and their advocates began the race across

the continent, each developing the social and political institutions of

their choice. Both had vast interests in common; and for a long time

neither was conscious of the fatal antagonisms that were developing.

For nearly two centuries there was no serious collision; but when the

continent began to fill up, and the people began to jostle against each

other; when the Roundhead and the Cavalier came near enough to measure

opinions, the irreconcilable character of the two doctrines began to

appear. Many conscientious men studied the subject, and came to the

belief that slavery was a crime, a sin, or, as Wesley said, 'the sum of

all villanies.' This belief dwelt in small minorities for a long time.

It lived in the churches and vestries, but later found its way into the

civil and political organizations of the country, and finally found its

way into this chamber. A few brave, clear-sighted, far-seeing men

announced it here, a little more than a generation ago. A predecessor of

mine, Joshua R. Giddings, following the lead of John Quincy Adams, of

Massachusetts, almost alone held up the banner on this floor, and from

year to year comrades came to his side. Through evil and through good

report he pressed the question upon the conscience of the nation, and

bravely stood in his place in this House, until his white locks, like

the plume of Henry of Navarre, showed where the battle of freedom raged

most fiercely.

And so the contest continued; the supporters of slavery believing

honestly and sincerely that slavery was a divine institution; that it

found its high sanctions in the living oracles of God and in a wise

political philosophy; that it was justified by the necessities of their

situation; and that slave-holders were missionaries to the dark sons of

Africa, to elevate and bless them. We are so far past the passions of

that early time that we can now study the progress of the struggle as a

great and inevitable development, without sharing in the crimination and

recrimination that attended it. If both sides could have seen that it

was a contest beyond their control; if both parties could have realized

the truth that "unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of

nations," much less for the fate of political parties, the bitterness,

the sorrow, the tears, and the blood might have been avoided. But we

walked in the darkness, our paths obscured by the smoke of the conflict,

each following his own convictions through ever-increasing fierceness,

until the debate culminated in "the last argument to which kings

resort."

This conflict of opinion was not merely one of sentimental feeling; it

involved our whole political system; it gave rise to two radically

different theories of the nature of our government; the North believing

and holding that we were a nation, the South insisting that we were only

a confederation of sovereign States, and insisting that each State had

the right, at its own discretion, to break the Union, and constantly

threatening secession where the full rights of slavery were not

acknowledged.

Thus the defence and aggrandizement of slavery, and the hatred of

abolitionism, became not only the central idea of the Democratic party,

but its master passion,--a passion intensified and inflamed by

twenty-five years of fierce political contest, which had not only driven

from its ranks all those who preferred freedom to slavery, but had

absorbed all the extreme pro-slavery elements of the fallen Whig party.

Over against this was arrayed the Republican party, asserting the broad

doctrines of nationality and loyalty, insisting that no State had a

right to secede, that secession was treason, and demanding that the

institution of slavery should be restricted to the limits of the States

where it already existed. But here and there many bolder and more

radical thinkers declared, with Wendell Phillips, that there never could

be union and peace, freedom and prosperity, until we were willing to see

John Hancock under a black skin.

* * * * *

Mr. Chairman, ought the Republican party to surrender its truncheon of

command to the Democracy? The gentleman from Mississippi says, if this

were England, the ministry would go out in twenty-four hours with such a

state of things as we have here. Ah, yes! that is an ordinary case of

change of administration. But if this were England, what would she have

done at the end of the war? England made one such mistake as the

gentleman asks this country to make, when she threw away the

achievements of the grandest man that ever trod her highway of power.

Oliver Cromwell had overturned the throne of despotic power, and had

lifted his country to a place of masterful greatness among the nations

of the earth; and when, after his death, his great sceptre was

transferred to a weak though not unlineal hand, his country, in a moment

of reactionary blindness, brought back the Stuarts. England did not

recover from that folly until, in 1689, the Prince of Orange drove from

her island the last of that weak and wicked line. Did she afterward

repeat the blunder?

* * * * *

I am aware that there is a general disposition "to let by-gones be

by-gones," and to judge of parties and of men, not by what they have

been, but by what they are and what they propose.

That view is partly just and partly erroneous. It is just and wise to

bury resentments and animosities. It is erroneous in this, that parties

have an organic life and spirit of their own--an individuality and

character which outlive the men who compose them; and the spirit and

traditions of a party should be considered in determining their fitness

for managing the affairs of a nation.

* * * * *

I will close by calling your attention again to the great problem before

us. Over this vast horizon of interests North and South, above all party

prejudices and personal wrong-doing, above our battle hosts and our

victorious cause, above all that we hoped for and won, or you hoped for

and lost, is the grand, onward movement of the Republic to perpetuate

its glory, to save liberty alive, to preserve exact and equal justice to

all, to protect and foster all these priceless principles, until they

shall have crystalized into the form of enduring law, and become

inwrought into the life and the habits of our people.

And, until these great results are accomplished, it is not safe to take

one step backward. It is still more unsafe to trust interests of such

measureless value in the hands of an organization whose members have

never comprehended their epoch, have never been in sympathy with its

great movements, who have resisted every step of its progress, and whose

principal function has been

"'To lie in cold obstruction'

across the pathway of the nation.

"No, no, gentlemen, our enlightened and patriotic people will not follow

such leaders in the rearward march. Their myriad faces are turned the

other way; and along their serried lines still rings the cheering cry,

'Forward! till our great work is fully and worthily accomplished.'"

[From a Speech in Congress, 1866.]

Duties should be so high that our manufacturers can fairly compete with

the foreign product, but not so high as to enable them to drive out the

foreign article, enjoy a monopoly of the trade, and regulate the price

as they please. This is my doctrine of protection.... I am for a

protection that leads to ultimate free trade. I am for that free trade

which can only be achieved through a reasonable protection.

[Letter to A. B. Hinsdale.]

WASHINGTON, January 1, 1867.

I am less satisfied with the present aspect of public affairs than I

have been for a long time.... Really there seems to be a fear on the

part of many of our friends that they may do some absurdly extravagant

thing to prove their radicalism. I am trying to do two things: dare to

be a radical and not be a fool, which, if I may judge by the exhibitions

around me, is a matter of no small difficulty.... My own course is

chosen, and it is quite probable it will throw me out of public life.

We provide for the common defence by a system which promotes the general

welfare.

[From an Address at Hiram College, June 14, 1867.]

It is to me a perpetual wonder how any child's love of knowledge

survives the outrages of the school-house. I, for one, declare that no

child of mine shall ever be _compelled_ to study one hour, or to learn

even the English alphabet, before he has deposited under his skin at

least seven years of muscle and bone.

[From the Same.]

The student should study himself, his relations to society, to nature,

and to art, and above all, in all, and through all these, he should

study the relations of himself, society, nature, and art, to God, the

Author of them all.

[From the Same]

It is well to know the history of those magnificent nations whose origin

is lost in fable, and whose epitaphs were written a thousand years

ago--but if we cannot know both, it is far better to study the history

of our own nation, whose origin we can trace to the freest and noblest

aspirations of the human heart--a nation that was formed from the

hardiest, purest, and most enduring elements of European civilization--a

nation that, by its faith and courage, has dared and accomplished more

for the human race in a single century than Europe accomplished in the

first thousand years of the Christian era. The New England township was

the type after which our Federal Government was modelled, yet it would

be rare to find a college student who can make a comprehensive and

intelligible statement of the municipal organization of the township in

which he was born, and tell you by what officers its legislative,

judicial, and executive functions were administered. One half of the

time which is now almost wasted, in district schools, on English

Grammar, attempted at too early an age, would be sufficient to teach our

children to love the Republic, and to become its loyal and life-long

supporters. After the bloody baptism from which the nation has arisen to

a higher and nobler life, of this shameful defect in our system of

education be not speedily remedied, we shall deserve the infinite

contempt of future generations. I insist that it should be made an

indispensable condition of graduation in every American college, that

the student must understand the history of this continent since its

discovery by Europeans, the origin and history of the United States, its

constitution of government, the struggles through which it has passed,

and the rights and duties of citizens who are to determine its destiny

and share its glory.

Having thus gained the knowledge which is necessary to life, health,

industry, and citizenship, the student is prepared to enter a wider and

grander field of thought. If he desires that large and liberal culture,

which will call into activity all his powers, and make the most of the

material God has given him, he must study deeply and earnestly the

intellectual, the moral, the religious, and the aesthetic nature of man;

his relations to nature, to civilization, past and present, and above

all, his relations to God. These should occupy nearly, if not fully,

half the time of his college course. In connection with the philosophy

of the mind, he should study logic, the pure mathematics, and the

general laws of thought. In connection with moral philosophy, he should

study political and social ethics--a science so little known either in

colleges or congresses. Prominent among all the rest should be his

study of the wonderful history of the human race, in its slow and

toilsome march across the centuries--now buried in ignorance,

superstition and crime; now rising to the sublimity of heroism and

catching a glimpse of a better destiny; now turning remorselessly away

from, and leaving to perish, empires and civilizations in which it had

invested its faith, and courage, and boundless energy for a thousand

years, and plunging into the forests of Germany, Gaul, and Britain, to

build for itself new empires, better fitted for its new aspirations;

and, at last, crossing three thousand miles of unknown sea, and building

in the wilderness of a new hemisphere its latest and proudest monuments.

[Speech in the House of Representatives, February 12, 1867.]

I cannot forget that we have learned slowly.... I cannot forget that

less than five years ago I received an order from my superior officer

commanding me to search my camp for a fugitive slave, and if found, to

deliver him up to a Kentucky captain who claimed him as his property;

and _I had the honor to be perhaps the first officer in the army who

peremptorily refused to obey such an order_. We were then trying to save

the Union without hurting slavery.... It took us two years to reach a

point where we were willing to do the most meagre justice to the black

man, and to recognize the truth that

"A man's a man for a' that!"

Sir, the hand of God has been visible in this work, leading us by

degrees out of the blindness of our prejudices, to see that the fortunes

of the Republic and the safety of the party of liberty are inseparably

bound up with the rights of the black man. At last our party must see

that if it would preserve its political life, or maintain the safety of

the Republic, we must do justice to the humblest man in the Nation,

whether black or white. I thank God that to-day we have struck the rock;

we have planted our feet upon solid earth. Streams of light will gleam

out from the luminous truth embodied in the legislation of this day.

This is the _ne plus ultra_ of reconstruction, and I hope we shall have

the courage to go before our people everywhere with "This or nothing"

for our motto.

Now, sir, as a temporary measure, I give my support to this military

bill properly restricted. It is severe. It was written with a steel pen

made out of a bayonet; and bayonets have done us good service hitherto.

All I ask is that Congress shall place civil governments before these

people of the rebel States, and a cordon of bayonets behind them.

* * * * *

Now, what does this bill propose? It lays the hands of the Nation upon

the rebel State governments, and takes the breath of life out of them.

It puts the bayonet at the breast of every rebel murderer in the South

to bring him to justice. It commands the army to protect the life and

property of citizens whether black or white. It places in the hands of

Congress absolutely and irrevocably the whole work of reconstruction.

With this thunderbolt in our hands shall we stagger like idiots under

its weight? Have we grasped a weapon which we have neither the courage

nor the wisdom to wield?

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.[D]

When in Europe in 1867, my attention was particularly drawn to the

significant fact that the pictures of Lincoln and Seward were the only

portraits of American statesmen that were notably prominent, and that

these were everywhere seen together. I asked a Frenchman of distinction

why Seward was held in such high estimation; and his answer most

seriously impressed me with the thought that perhaps, after all the

slanders of his detractors, Mr. Seward had builded for the future more

wisely than we knew. This gentleman said: "Mr. Seward is the American

statesman who looms up the most prominently from over the water. His

diplomacy in Mexico has placed the imprint of greatness upon his name.

Halting for a moment in the midst of the turmoil of the civil war, with

his pen he dismembered the coalition organized to place Maximilian upon

the Mexican throne, and thus placed the first mine under the throne of

the Third Bonaparte. He has undertaken what the combined powers of

Europe have not ventured to essay--to break the sceptre of the Second

Empire." The views entertained by this distinguished Frenchman seem also

to have been held in Mexico, for upon the occasion of the death of Mr.

Seward, the press of that country all made the most grateful mention of

his services in that regard.

The enthusiasm of this Frenchman, continued General Garfield, had not

perished from my memory later when public duties called me to the State

Department. The Alaska treaty had just been signed. I found the Sage of

Auburn alone, in the thoughtful mood so common to him when meditating

upon great subjects. Our conversation fell upon himself, and I found

that he had been meditating upon his withdrawal from public life. He had

been eight years in the second highest place in this Nation. He had

almost had the Presidency within his grasp; but the displeasure of his

party had fallen upon him, and he was about to retire from the political

arena. He told me that power was sweet to him; that he clung even then

fondly to its shadow; and that he relinquished his sceptre with regret.

His exact language, in speaking of his past career was: "It is

unpleasant to yield up power." The conversation turned upon Alaska. The

Secretary fell into the dream-like attitude that was never seen except

by those who were familiar with him, and commenced to explain his theory

of the Alaska purchase in forcible, prophetic, almost pathetic words

which I never shall forget. I left the room then with grander ideas of

the man than I had ever entertained before. His conversation indicated

that he had been following a particular course of study, for he remarked

that, to his notion, the two greatest books of the century were Marsh's

"Man in Nature," and the Duke of Argyll's "Reign of Law." The

application of Argyll's theory of law as applied to political

development, Mr. Seward had evidently studied with much care. He had

been reasoning upon natural laws as they affect a nation. He had been

speculating upon the elementary forces of a nation's grandeur, and upon

the contrivance in combining them to make them operate in a direction

desired. This theory was founded upon the possibility of tracing these

forces in history, and of discovering the operation of these laws under

conditions which had actually determined the course of mankind and

nations in definite directions. The text of his theory was the history

of the world's seas. History had taught him that the grandest

achievements of man had been associated with the shores of the world's

seas. To go back no further than the beginning of the Christian era, the

most sacred, solemn story of the hopes of man had been written in

wanderings on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. With the progress of

Christian civilization, thus sea-born, the advancing tide of human

progress was staid by the banks of the Mediterranean. It was along the

borders of this sea that the Byzantine Empire flourished and was

destroyed; that Rome attained her supremacy, and fell. With the progress

of time, and the advance of civilization westward, the Atlantic took the

place of the Galilean Sea and of the Mediterranean. It is the sea of

the present. But unless the laws of political geography are false, the

contests of the future are to be around the shores of the "still sea,"

now our own Pacific. The nation of the future is the nation that holds

the key of those waters. The purchase of Alaska has given our Republic a

foothold on both sides of that sea. It is a geographical impossibility

that any other nation can occupy a position in its own territory upon

both sides of the Pacific. This is the theory of the purchase. It

secures the control of the Pacific to the young Republic. It assures the

future of the world's dominion to Yankee civilization. This was the

theory.

And his outlook, said General Garfield, with enthusiasm, was grand. In

his political horoscope, he saw the Republic enjoying a prosperity of

which the annals of human affairs had furnished no example; he saw our

country rising to the place of umpire among the world's powers; he saw

how, by wise statesmanship, our material prosperity and peaceful

conquests grew together; how our increasing commerce made us mistress of

the seas; how Western civilization and Oriental decrepitude were staid

upon the borders of that Pacific sea, and compelled to render homage to

Young America, who had become the keeper of the world's keys.

These were the grand thoughts of Mr. Seward as he was about to

relinquish the mantle of his power, and, continued General Garfield,

his views have left a lasting impression upon me. Mr. Seward could not

have died more successfully than he did. He passed away in the lull

between two elections, and received the merited eulogiums of both

parties. He bore success followed by failure better than any American I

know. He was for nearly a decade next to the source of power, and missed

the place which was the goal of his later years, retiring from public

life suffering the displeasure of his party. But he quietly retired to

private life, and never lost his genial spirit or his noble ways.

[This report of the conversation is indorsed by General Garfield as "in

the main correct."

J. C]

[Speech on the Currency Question, 1868.]

As a medium of exchange, money is to all business transactions what

ships are to the transportation of merchandise. If a hundred vessels, of

a given tonnage, are just sufficient to carry all the commodities

between two ports, any increase of the number of vessels will

correspondingly decrease the value of each as an instrument of commerce;

any decrease below one hundred will correspondingly increase the value

of each. If the number be doubled, each will carry but half its usual

freight, will be worth but half its former value for that trade. There

is so much work to be done, and no more. A hundred vessels can do it

all. A thousand can do no more than all.

* * * * *

When the money of the country is gold and silver, it adapts itself to

the fluctuations of business without the aid of legislation. If at any

time we have more than is needed, the surplus flows off to other

countries through the channels of international commerce. If less, the

deficiency is supplied through the same channels. Thus the monetary

equilibrium is maintained. So immense is the trade of the world, that

the golden streams pouring from California and Australia into the specie

circulation are soon absorbed in the great mass, and equalized

throughout the world, as the waters of all the rivers are spread upon

the surface of all the seas.

Not so, however, with an inconvertible paper currency. Excepting the

specie used in payment of customs and the interest on our public debt,

we are cut off from the money currents of the world. Our currency

resembles rather the waters of an artificial lake, which lie in

stagnation or rise to full banks at the caprice of the gate-keeper.

[A Speech on Currency and the Banks, 1870.]

The business of the country is like the level of the ocean, from which

all measurements are made of heights and depths. Though tides and

currents may for a time disturb, and tempests vex and toss its surface,

still through calm and storm the grand level rules all its waves and

lays its measuring-lines on every shore. So the business of the country,

which, in the aggregated demands of the people for the exchange of

values, marks the ebb and flow, the rise and fall of the currents of

trade, and forms the base-line from which to measure all our financial

legislation, and is the only safe rule by which the volume of our

currency can be determined.

* * * * *

The State bank system was a chaos of ruin, in which the business of the

country was again and again ingulfed. The people rejoice that it has

been swept away, and they will not consent to its re-establishment. In

its place we have the National-bank system, based on the bonds of the

United States, and sharing the safety and credit of the government.

Their notes are made secure, first, by a deposit of government bonds,

worth at least ten per cent. more than the whole value of the notes;

second, by a paramount lien on all the assets of the banks; third, the

personal liability of all the shareholders to an amount equal to the

capital they hold; and, fourth, the absolute guarantee by the government

to redeem them at the National Treasury if the banks fail to do so.

Instead of seven thousand different varieties of notes, as in the State

system, we have now but ten varieties, each uniform in character and

appearance. Like our flag, they bear the stamp of nationality, and are

honored in every part of the Union.

[From a Speech in the House, April 1, 1870.]

As an abstract theory of political economy free-trade has many

advocates, and much can be said in its favor; nor will it be denied that

the scholarship of modern times is largely on that side; that a large

majority of the great thinkers of the present day are leading in the

direction of what is called free-trade.

While this is true, it is equally undeniable that the principle of

protection has always been recognized and adopted in some form or

another by all nations, and is to-day, to a greater or less extent, the

policy of every civilized government....

Protection, in its practical meaning, is that provident care for the

industry and development of our own country which will give our own

people an equal chance in the pursuit of wealth, and save us from the

calamity of being dependent upon other nations with whom we may any day

be at war.

In so far as the doctrine of free-trade is a protest against the old

system of oppression and prohibition, it is a healthy and worthy

sentiment. But underlying all theories, there is a strong and deep

conviction in the minds of a great majority of our people in favor of

protecting American industry....

[Speech on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, April 4, 1871.]

... Nothing more aptly describes the character of our Republic than the

solar system, launched into space by the hand of the Creator, where the

central sun is the great power around which revolve all the planets in

their appointed orbits. But while the sun holds in the grasp of its

attractive power the whole system, and imparts its light and heat to

all, yet each individual planet is under the sway of laws peculiar to

itself.

Under the sway of terrestrial laws, winds blow, waters flow, and all the

tenantries of the planet live and move. So, sir, the States move on in

their orbits of duty and obedience, bound to the central government by

this Constitution, which is their supreme law; while each State is

making laws and regulations of its own, developing its own energies,

maintaining its own industries, managing its local affairs in its own

way, subject only to the supreme but beneficent control of the Union.

When State-rights ran mad, put on the form of secession, and attempted

to drag the States out of the Union, we saw the grand lesson, taught in

all the battles of the late war, that a State could no more be hurled

from the Union, without ruin to the nation, than could a planet be

thrown from its orbit without dragging after it, to chaos and ruin, the

whole solar universe.

In 1865 we had a debt of two billions seven hundred and seventy-two

millions of dollars upon our hands, the debt accumulated from the great

results of the war; we were compelled to pay from that debt one hundred

and fifty-one millions of dollars in coin a year as interest, and that

was a dreadful annual burden. In the year after the war ended, we paid

five hundred and ninety millions of dollars over our counter in settling

the business of the war and maintaining the ordinary expenses of the

government. These tremendous burdens it seemed for a time we could not

carry, and there were wicked men, and despairing men, and men who said

we ought not to try to carry the burdens; but the brave nation said,

This burden is the price of our country's life, all through it there is

the price of blood and the price of liberty, and, therefore, we will bow

our knees to the burden, we will carry it upon the stalwart shoulders of

the nation.

[Letter to Professor Demmon December 16, 1871.]

... Since I entered public life, I have constantly aimed to find a

little time to keep alive the spirit of my classical studies, and to

resist that constant tendency, which all public men feel, to grow rusty

in literary studies, and particularly in the classical studies. I have

thought it better to select some one line of classical reading, and, if

possible, do a little work on it each day. For this winter I am

determined to review such parts of the Odes of Horace as I may be able

to reach. And, as preliminary to that work, I have begun by reading up

the bibliography of Horace.

The Congressional Library is very rich in materials for this study, and

I am amazed to find how deep and universal has been the impress left on

the cultivated mind of the world by Horace's writings.

* * * * *

The Student should study himself his relation to Society, to Nature and

to Art--and above all, in all, and through all these, he should study

the relations of Himself, Society, Nature, and Art to God the Author of

them all.

* * * * *

Greek is perhaps the most perfect instrument of Thought ever invented by

Man, and its Literature has never been equalled in purity of style and

boldness of expression.

* * * * *

History is but the unrolled scroll of Prophecy. The world's history is a

divine Poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every

man a word. Its strains have been pealing along down the centuries, and

though there have been mingled the discords of warring cannon and dying

men, yet to the Christian, Philosopher, and Historian--the humble

listener--there has been a divine melody running through the song which

speaks of hope and halcyon days to come.

* * * * *

The lesson of History is rarely learned by the actors themselves.

* * * * *

Theologians in all ages have looked out admiringly upon the material

universe, and from its inanimate existences demonstrated the Power,

Wisdom, and Goodness of God; but we know of no one who has demonstrated

the same attributes from the History of the human race.

* * * * *

Mankind have been slow to believe that order reigns in the universe,

that the world is a Cosmos, not a chaos.

The assertion of the reign of Law has been stubbornly resisted at every

step. The divinities of Heathen superstition still linger in one form or

another in the faith of the ignorant, and even many intelligent men

shrink from the contemplation of one Supreme Will acting regularly, not

fatuitously, through laws beautiful and simple, rather than through a

fitful and capricious Providence.

* * * * *

English liberty to-day rests not so much on the government as on those

rights which the people have wrested from the government. The rights of

the Englishman outnumber the rights of the Englishman's king.

* * * * *

Poetry is the language of Freedom.

* * * * *

Liberty can be safe only when Suffrage is illuminated by education.

[Speech on the last Census.]

The developments of statistics are causing history to be re-written.

Till recently the historian studied nature in the aggregate, and gave us

only the story of princes, dynasties, sieges, and battles. Of the people

themselves--the great social body, with life, growth, forces, elements,

etc.--he told us nothing. Now, statistical inquiry leads us into the

hovels, houses, workshops, mines, fields, prisons, hospitals, and all

places where human nature displays its weakness and strength. In these

explorations he discovers the seeds of national growth and decay, and

thus becomes the prophet of his generation.

Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In

legislation, as in physical science, it is beginning to be understood

that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The

legislator must formulate in his statistics not only the national will

but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics. He must

study society rather than black-letter learning. He must learn the truth

that "society usually prepares the crime, and the criminal is only the

instrument that completes it," that statesmanship consists rather in

removing causes than in punishing, or evading results.

[Speech on National Aid to Education, February 6, 1872.]

We look sometimes with great admiration at a government like Germany,

that can command the light of its education to shine everywhere, that

can enforce its school laws everywhere throughout the Empire. Under our

system we do not rejoice in that, but we rather rejoice that here two

forces play with all their vast power upon our system of education. The

first is that of the local municipal power under our State government.

There is the centre of responsibility. There is the chief educational

power....

But there is another force even greater than that of the State and the

local governments. It is the force of private voluntary enterprise, that

force which has built up the multitude of private schools, academies,

and colleges throughout the United States, not always wisely, but always

with enthusiasm and wonderful energy.

* * * * *

I am considering what is the best system of organizing the educational

work of a nation, not from the political stand-point alone, but from the

stand-point of the school-house itself. This work of public education

partakes in a peculiar way of the spirit of the human mind in its

efforts for culture. The mind must be as free from extraneous control as

possible; must work under the inspiration of its own desires for

knowledge; and while instructors and books are necessary helps, the

fullest and highest success must spring from the power of self-help.

So the best system of education is that which draws its chief support

from the voluntary effort of the community, from the individual effort

of citizens, and from those burdens of taxation which they voluntarily

impose upon themselves.... Government shall be only a help to them,

rather than a commander, in the work of education.

* * * * *

I would rather be beaten in Right than succeed in Wrong.

* * * * *

Present evils always seem greater than those that never come.

* * * * *

Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but nine times out of ten

the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard

and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I

never knew a man to be drowned who was worth the saving.

* * * * *

For the noblest man that lives there still remains a conflict.

* * * * *

No man can make a speech alone. It is the great human power that strikes

up from a thousand minds that acts upon him and makes the speech.

* * * * *

After the battle of Arms comes the battle of History.

* * * * *

There is a fellowship among the Virtues by which one great, generous

passion stimulates another.

* * * * *

Growth is better than Permanence, and permanent growth is better than

all.

* * * * *

The principles of Ethics have not changed by the lapse of years.

* * * * *

The possession of great power no doubt carries with it a contempt for

mere external show.

[From a Speech on Repealing the Salary Clause, 1873.]

One of the brightest and greatest of men I know in this nation [Louis

Agassiz], a man who, perhaps, has done as much for its intellectual life

as any other, told me not many months ago that he had made it the rule

of his life to abandon any intellectual pursuit the moment it became

commercially valuable; that others would utilize what he had discovered;

that his field of work was above the line of commercial values, and when

he brought down the great truths of science from the upper heights to

the level of commercial values, a thousand hands would be ready to take

them, and make them more valuable in the markets of the world. He

entered upon his great career, not for the salary it gave him, for that

was meagre compared with the pay of those in the lower walks of life;

but he followed the promptings of his great nature, and worked for the

love of truth and the instruction of mankind.

[Letter to B. A. Hinsdale, 1874.]

The worst days of darkness through which I have ever passed have been

greatly alleviated by throwing myself with all my energy into some work

relating to others.

[Speech on the Currency and the Public Faith, April 8, 1874.]

There never did exist on this earth a body of men wise enough to

determine by any arbitrary rule how much currency is needed for the

business of a great country. The laws of trade, the laws of credit, the

laws of God impressed upon the elements of this world, are superior to

all legislation; and we can enjoy the benefits of these immutable laws

only by obeying them.

* * * * *

It has been demonstrated again and again that upon the artisans, the

farmers, the day-laborers falls at last the dead weight of all the

depreciation and loss that irredeemable paper-money carries in its

train. Let this policy be carried out, and the day will surely and

speedily come when the nation will clearly trace the cause of its

disaster to those who deluded themselves and the people with what

Jefferson fitly called "legerdemain tricks of paper-money."

[Speech on the Railway Problem, June 22, 1874.]

We are so involved in the events and movements of society that we do not

stop to realize--what is undeniably true--that during the last forty

years all modern societies have entered upon a period of change more

marked, more pervading, more radical than any that has occurred during

the last three hundred years. In saying this, I do not forget our own

political and military history, nor the French Revolution of 1793. The

changes now taking place have been wrought, and are being wrought,

mainly, almost wholly, by a single mechanical contrivance, the steam

locomotive. Imagine, if you can, what would happen if to-morrow morning

the railway locomotive, and its corollary, the telegraph, were blotted

from the earth. At first thought, it would seem impossible to get on at

all with the feeble substitutes we should be compelled to adopt in place

of these great forces. To what humble proportions mankind would be

compelled to scale down the great enterprises they are now pushing

forward with such ease! But were this calamity to happen, we should

simply be placed where we were forty-three years ago.

There are many persons now living who well remember the day when Andrew

Jackson, after four weeks of toilsome travel from his home in Tennessee,

reached Washington and took his first oath of office as President of the

United States. On that day the railway locomotive did not exist. During

that year Henry Clay was struggling to make his name immortal by linking

it with the then vast project of building a national road--a

turnpike--from the national capital to the banks of the Mississippi.

In the autumn of that very year George Stephenson ran his first

experimental locomotive, the "Rocket," from Manchester to Liverpool and

back. The rumble of its wheels, redoubled a million times, is echoing

to-day on every continent.

* * * * *

The American people have done much for the locomotive, and it has done

much for them. We have already seen that it has greatly reduced, if not

wholly destroyed, the danger that the government will fall to pieces by

its own weight. The railroad has not only brought our people and their

industries together, but it has carried civilization into the

wilderness, has built up States and Territories, which, but for its

power, would have remained deserts for a century to come. "Abroad and at

home," as Mr. Adams tersely declares, "it has equally nationalized

people and cosmopolized nations." It has played a most important part in

the recent movement for the unification and preservation of nations.

It enabled us to do what the old military science had pronounced

impossible--to conquer a revolted population of eleven millions,

occupying a territory one-fifth as large as the continent of Europe. In

an able essay on the railway system, Mr. Charles F. Adams, Jr. has

pointed out some of the remarkable achievements of the railroad in our

recent history. For example, a single railroad track enabled Sherman to

maintain eighty thousand fighting men three hundred miles beyond his

base of supplies. Another line, in a space of seven days, brought a

re-enforcement of two fully equipped army corps around a circuit of

thirteen hundred miles, to strengthen an army at a threatened point. He

calls attention to the still more striking fact that for ten years past,

with fifteen hundred millions of our indebtedness abroad, an enormous

debt at home, unparalleled public expenditures, and a depreciated paper

currency, in defiance of all past experience, we have been steadily

conquering our difficulties, have escaped the predicted collapse, and

are promptly meeting our engagements; because, through energetic

railroad development, the country has been producing real wealth, as no

country has produced it before. Finally, he sums up the case by

declaring that the locomotive has "dragged the country through its

difficulties in spite of itself."

* * * * *

In the darkness and chaos of that period, the feudal system was the

first important step toward the organization of modern nations. Powerful

chiefs and barons intrenched themselves in castles, and, in return for

submission and service, gave to their vassals rude protection and ruder

laws. But as the feudal chiefs grew in power and wealth, they became the

oppressors of their people, taxed and robbed them at will, and finally,

in their arrogance, defied the kings and emperors of the Mediaeval

States. From their castles, planted on the great thoroughfares, they

practised the most capricious extortions on commerce and travel, and

thus gave to modern language the phrase, "levy blackmail."

The consolidation of our great industrial and commercial companies, the

power they wield, and the relations they sustain to the State and to the

industry of the people, do not fall far short of Fourier's definition of

commercial or industrial feudalism. The modern barons, more powerful

than their military prototypes, own our greatest highways, and levy

tribute at will upon all our vast industries. And, as the old feudalism

was finally controlled and subordinated only by the combined efforts of

the kings and the people of the free cities and towns, so our modern

feudalism can be subordinated to the public good only by the great body

of the people, acting through their governments by wise and just laws.

I shall not now enter upon the discussion of methods by which this great

work of adjustment may be accomplished. But I refuse to believe that the

genius and energy which have developed these new and tremendous forces,

will fail to make them, not the masters, but the faithful servants of

society. It will be a disgrace to our age and to us, if we do not

discover some method by which the public functions of these

organizations may be brought into full subordination to the public, and

that, too, without violence, and without unjust interference with the

rights of private individuals. It will be unworthy of our age, and of

us, if we make the discussion of this subject a mere warfare against

men. For in these great industrial enterprises have been, and still are

engaged, some of the noblest and worthiest men of our time. It is the

system--its tendencies and its dangers--which society itself has

produced, that we are now to confront. And these industries must not be

crippled, but promoted. The evils complained of are mainly of our own

making. States and communities have willingly and thoughtlessly

conferred these great powers upon railways; and they must seek to

rectify their own errors without injury to the industries they have

encouraged.

* * * * *

It depends upon the wisdom, the culture, the self-control of our people

and their representatives, to determine how wisely and how well this

question shall be settled. But that it will be solved, and solved in the

interest of liberty and justice, I do not doubt. And its solution will

open the way to a solution of a whole chapter of similar questions that

relate to the conflict between capital and labor.

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, June, 1874.]

The division between church and state ought to be so absolute that no

church property anywhere, in any State or in the nation, should be

exempt from taxation; for, if you exempt the property of any church

organization, to that extent you impose a church-tax upon the whole

community.

* * * * *

Occasion may be the bugle-call that summons an army to battle, but the

blast of a bugle can never make soldiers or win victories.

* * * * *

Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.

* * * * *

We cannot study nature profoundly without bringing ourselves into

communion with the spirit of art which pervades and fills the universe.

* * * * *

If there be one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire

better than another, it is a brave man; it is a man who dares to look

the devil in the face, and tell him he is a devil.

* * * * *

It is one of the precious mysteries of sorrow, that it finds solace in

unselfish thought.

* * * * *

True art is but the anti-type of nature, the embodiment of discovered

beauty in utility.

* * * * *

In order to have any success in life, or any worthy success, you must

resolve to carry into your work a fulness of knowledge; not merely a

sufficiency, but more than a sufficiency.

* * * * *

Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing.

* * * * *

If you are not too large for the place, you are too small for it.

* * * * *

What the arts are to the world of matter, literature is to the world of

mind.

* * * * *

Many books we can read in a railroad car, and feel a harmony between the

rushing of the train and the haste of the author; but to enjoy standard

works, we need the quiet of a winter evening; an easy-chair before a

cheerful fire, and all the equanimity of spirits we can command.

* * * * *

He who would understand the real spirit of literature should not select

authors of any one period alone, but rather go to the fountain-head, add

trace the little rill as it courses along down the ages, broadening and

deepening into the great ocean of thought which the men of the present

are exploring.

* * * * *

The true literary man is no mere gleaner, following in the rear and

gathering up the fragments of the world's thought; but he goes down

deep into the heart of humanity, watches its throbbings; analyzes the

forces at work there; traces out, with prophetic foresight, their

tendencies, and thus, standing out far beyond his age, holds up the

picture of what it is and is to be.

[Letter to A. B. Hinsdale, 1876.]

I have followed this rule [as a lawyer]: whenever I have had a case, I

have undertaken to work out thoroughly the principles involved in it;

not for the case alone, but for the sake of comprehending thoroughly

that branch of the law.

[From "Life and Character of Almeda A. Booth," June 22, 1876.]

We can study no life intelligently except in its relation to causes and

results. Character is the chief element; for it is both a result and a

cause--the result of all the elements and forces that combined to form

it, and the chief cause of all that is accomplished by its possessor....

Every character is the joint product of nature and nurture. By the

first, we mean those inborn qualities of body and mind inherited from

parents, or rather from a long line of ancestors. Who shall estimate the

effect of those latent forces, enfolded in the spirit of a new-born

child, which may date back centuries, and find their origin in the

unwritten history of remote ancestors--forces, the germs of which,

enveloped in the solemn mystery of life, have been transmitted silently,

from generation to generation, and never perish? All-cherishing Nature,

provident and unforgetting, gathers up all these fragments that nothing

may be lost, but that all may reappear in new combinations. Each new

life is thus the "heir of all the ages," the possessor of qualities

which only the events of life can unfold.

By the second element, nurture, culture, we designate all those

influences which act upon this initial force of character, to retard or

strengthen its development. There has been much discussion to determine

which of these elements plays the more important part in the formation

of character. The truth doubtless is, that sometimes the one and

sometimes the other is the greater force; but so far as life and

character are dependent upon voluntary action, the second is no doubt

the element of chief importance.

[From the Same.]

Not enough attention has been paid to the marked difference between the

situation and possibilities of a life developed here in the West, during

the first half of the present century, and those of a life nurtured and

cultivated in an old and settled community like that of New England.

Consider, for example, the measureless difference between the early

surroundings of John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln. Both were

possessed of great natural endowments. Adams was blessed with parents

whose native force of character, and whose vigorous and thorough culture

have never been surpassed by any married pair in America. Young Adams

was thoroughly taught by his mother until he had completed his tenth

year; and then, accompanying his father to France, he spent two years in

a training-school at Paris and three years in the University at Leyden.

After two years of diplomatic service, under the skilful guidance of his

father's hand, he returned to America, and devoted three years to study

at Harvard, where he was graduated at the age of twenty-one; and, three

years later, was graduated in the law, under the foremost jurist of his

time. With such parentage and such opportunities, who can wonder that by

the time he reached the meridian of his life, he was a man of immense

erudition, and had honored every great office in the gift of his

country?

How startling the contrast, in every particular, between his early life

and that of Abraham Lincoln.... Born to an inheritance of the extremest

poverty, wholly unaided by his parents, surrounded by the rude forces of

the wilderness, only one year at any school, never for a day master of

his own time until he reached his majority, forcing his way to the

profession of the law by the hardest and roughest road, and beginning

its practice at twenty-eight years of age, yet, by the force of

unconquerable will and persistent hard work, he attained a foremost

place in his profession.

"And, moving up from high to higher,

Became, on fortune's crowning slope,

The pillar of a people's hope,

The centre of a world's desire."

[From the Same.]

It is one of the precious mysteries of sorrow, that it finds solace in

unselfish work.

* * * * *

A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck. Let not poverty stand as an

obstacle in your way.

* * * * *

Here is the volume of our laws. More sacred than the twelve tables of

Rome, this rock of the law rises in monumental grandeur alike above the

people and the President, above the courts, above Congress, commanding

everywhere reverence and obedience to its supreme authority.

* * * * *

That man makes a vital mistake who judges truth in relation to financial

affairs from the changing phases of public opinion. He might as well

stand on the shore of the Bay of Fundy, and from the ebb and flow of a

single tide attempt to determine the general level of the sea, as to

stand upon this floor, and from the current of public opinion on any

one debate, judge of the general level of the public mind. It is only

when long spaces along the shore of the sea are taken into account that

the grand level is found from which the heights and depths are measured.

And it is only when long spaces of time are considered, that we find at

last that level of public opinion which we call the general judgment of

mankind.

* * * * *

Bad faith on the part of an individual, a city, or even a State, is a

small evil in comparison with the calamities which follow bad faith on

the part of a sovereign government.

* * * * *

In the complex and delicately adjusted relations of modern society,

confidence in promises lawfully made is the life-blood of trade and

commerce. It is the vital air Labor breathes. It is the light which

shines on the pathway of prosperity.

* * * * *

An act of bad faith on the part of a State or municipal corporation,

like poison in the blood, will transmit its curse to succeeding

generations.

* * * * *

We are accustomed to hear it said that the great powers of government in

this country are divided into two classes; National powers and State

powers. That is an incomplete classification. Our fathers carefully

divided all governmental powers into three classes; one they gave to

the States, another to the Nation; but the third great class,

comprising the most precious of all powers, they refused to confer on

the State or Nation, but reserved to themselves. This third class of

powers has been almost uniformly overlooked by men who have written and

discussed the American system.

* * * * *

Congress must always be the exponent of the political character and

culture of the people, and if the next centennial does not find us a

great Nation with a great and worthy Congress, it will be because those

who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the

Nation do not aid in controlling the political forces which are employed

to select the men who shall occupy the great places of trust and power.

* * * * *

There is scarcely a conceivable form of corruption or public wrong that

does not at last present itself at the cashier's desk and demand money.

The Legislature therefore, that stands at the cashier's desk and watches

with its Argus eyes the demands for payment over the counter is most

certain to see all the forms of public rascality.

* * * * *

A steady and constant Revenue drawn from sources that represent the

prosperity of the nation,--a Revenue that grows with the growth of

national wealth, and is so adjusted to the expenditures, that a

constant and considerable surplus is annually left in the Treasury above

all the necessary current demands, a surplus that keeps the Treasury

strong, that holds it above the fear of sudden panic, that makes it

impregnable against all private combinations, that makes it a terror to

all stock-jobbing and gold-gambling,--this is financial health.

[From the "Atlantic Monthly," July, 1877.]

The most alarming feature of our situation is the fact, that so many

citizens of high character and solid judgment pay but little attention

to the sources of political power, to the selection of those who shall

make their laws.... It is precisely this neglect of the first steps in

our political processes that has made possible the worst evils of our

system. Corrupt and incompetent presidents, judges, and legislators can

be removed, but when the fountains of political power are corrupted,

when voters themselves become venal, and elections fraudulent, there is

no remedy except by awakening the public conscience, and bringing to

bear upon the subject the power of public opinion and the penalties of

the law.... In a word, our national safety demands that the fountains of

political power shall be made pure by intelligence, and kept pure by

vigilance; that the best citizens shall take heed to the selection and

election of the worthiest and most intelligent among them to hold seats

in the national legislature; and that when the choice has been made, the

continuance of their representative shall depend upon his faithfulness,

his ability, and his willingness to work.

[Speech on the presentation to Congress of Carpenter's painting of

President Lincoln and his Cabinet, at the time of his first reading of

the Proclamation of Emancipation, January 16, 1878.]

Let us pause to consider the actors in that scene. In force of

character, in thoroughness and breadth of culture, in experience of

public affairs, and in national reputation, the cabinet that sat around

that council-board has had no superior, perhaps no equal in our history.

Seward, the finished scholar, the consummate orator, the great leader of

the senate, had come to crown his career with those achievements which

placed him in the first rank of modern diplomatists. Chase, with a

culture and a frame of massive grandeur, stood as the rock and pillar of

the public credit, the noble embodiment of the public faith. Stanton was

there, a very Titan of strength, the great organizer of victory. Eminent

lawyers, men of business, leaders of states, and leaders of men,

completed the group.

But the man who presided over that council, who inspired and guided its

determinations, was a character so unique that he stood alone, without

a model in history, or a parallel among men. Born on this day,

sixty-nine years ago, to an inheritance of extremest poverty, surrounded

by the rude forces of the wilderness; wholly unaided by parents; only

one year in any school; never, for a day, master of his own time until

he reached his majority; making his way to the profession of the law by

the hardest and roughest road; yet, by force of unconquerable will and

persistent, patient work, he attained a foremost place in his

profession,

"And, moving up from high to higher,

Became, on fortune's crowning slope,

The pillar of a people's hope,

The centre of a world's desire."

At first it was the prevailing belief that he would be only the nominal

head of his administration; that its policy would be directed by the

eminent statesmen he had called to his council. How erroneous this

opinion was, may be seen from a single incident. Among the earliest,

most difficult, and most delicate duties of his administration, was the

adjustment of our relations with Great Britain. Serious complications,

even hostilities, were apprehended. On the 21st day of May, 1861, the

Secretary of State presented to the President his draught of a letter of

instructions to Minister Adams, in which the position of the United

States and the attitude of Great Britain were set forth with the

clearness and force which long experience and great ability had placed

at the command of the Secretary.

Upon almost every page of that original draught are erasures, additions,

and marginal notes in the handwriting of Abraham Lincoln, which exhibit

a sagacity, a breadth of wisdom, and a comprehension of the whole

subject, impossible to be found except in a man of the very first order.

And these modifications of a great state-paper were made by a man who,

but three months before, had entered, for the first time, the wide

theatre of executive action.

Gifted with an insight and a foresight which the ancients would have

called divination, he saw, in the midst of darkness and obscurity, the

logic of events, and forecast the result. From the first, in his own

quaint, original way, without ostentation or offence to his associates,

he was pilot and commander of his administration. He was one of the few

great rulers whose wisdom increased with his power, and whose spirit

grew gentler and tenderer as his triumphs were multiplied.

[From the "North American Review," May-June, 1878.]

The Secretary of War is a civil officer; one of the constitutional

advisers of the President--his civil executive to direct and control

military affairs, and conduct army administration for the President....

This was clearly understood in our early history, and it is worthy of

note that our most eminent Secretaries of War have been civilians, who

brought to the duties of the office great political and legal

experience, and other high qualities of statesmanship.

Perhaps it was wise in Washington to choose as the first Secretary of

War, a distinguished soldier, for the purpose of creating and setting in

order the military establishment; but it may well be doubted if any

subsequent appointment of a soldier to that position has been wise. In

fact, most of the misadjustments between the Secretary of War and the

army, so much complained of in recent years, originated with a Secretary

of War who had been a soldier, and could hardly refrain from usurping

the functions of command....

No very serious conflict of jurisdiction and command occurred until

Jefferson Davis became Secretary of War. His early training as a

soldier, his spirit of self-reliance and habits of imperious command,

soon brought him into collision with General Scott, and were the

occasion of a correspondence, perhaps the most acrimonious ever carried

on by any prominent public man of our country.

[From a Speech at Faneuil Hall, Boston, September 11, 1878.]

The Republican party of this country has said, and it says to-day, that,

forgetting all the animosities of the war, forgetting all the fierceness

and the passion of it, it reaches out both its hands to the gallant men

who fought us, and offers all fellowship, all comradeship, all feelings

of brotherhood, on this sole condition, and on that condition they will

insist forever: That in the war for the Union we were right, forever

right, and that in the war against the Union they were wrong, forever

wrong. We never made terms, we never will make terms, with the man who

denies the everlasting rightfulness of our cause. That would be treason

to the dead and injustice to the living; and on that basis alone our

pacification is complete. We ask that it be realized, and we shall

consider it fully realized when it is just as safe and just as honorable

for a good citizen of South Carolina to be a Republican there as it is

for a good citizen of Massachusetts to be a Democrat here.

[From an Address at Hiram College.]

Our great dangers are not from without. We do not live by the consent of

any other nation. We must look within to find elements of danger.

[From a Speech on the Ninth Census.]

Statesmanship consists rather in removing causes than in punishing, or

evading results.

[From a Speech, December 10, 1878.]

The man who wants to serve his country must put himself in the line of

its leading thought, and that is the restoration of business, trade,

commerce, industry, sound political economy, hard money, and the payment

of all obligations; and the man who can add anything in the direction of

accomplishing any of these purposes is a public benefactor.

* * * * *

The scientific spirit has cast out the Demons and presented us with

Nature, clothed in her right mind and living under the reign of law. It

has given us for the sorceries of the alchemist, the beautiful laws of

chemistry; for the dreams of the astrologer, the sublime truths of

astronomy; for the wild visions of cosmogony, the monumental records of

geology; for the anarchy of diabolism, the laws of God.

* * * * *

We no longer attribute the untimely death of infants to the sin of Adam,

but to bad nursing and ignorance.

* * * * *

Truth is so related and correlated that no department of her realm is

wholly isolated.

* * * * *

Truth is the food of the human spirit, which could not grow in its

majestic proportions without clearer and more truthful views of God and

his universe.

* * * * *

Ideas are the great warriors of the world, and a war that has no ideas

behind it is simply brutality.

* * * * *

I love to believe that no heroic sacrifice is ever lost, that the

characters of men are moulded and inspired by what their fathers have

done; that, treasured up in American souls are all the unconscious

influences of the great deeds of the Anglo-Saxon race, from Agincourt to

Bunker Hill.

* * * * *

Eternity alone will reveal to the human race its debt of gratitude to

the peerless and immortal name of Washington.

* * * * *

I doubt if any man equalled Samuel Adams in formulating and uttering the

fierce, clear, and inexorable logic of the Revolution.

* * * * *

The last eight decades have witnessed an Empire spring up in the full

panoply of lusty life, from a trackless wilderness.

* * * * *

In their struggle with the forces of nature, the ability to labor was

the richest patrimony of the colonist.

* * * * *

The granite hills are not so changeless and abiding as the restless

sea.

* * * * *

To him a battle was neither an earthquake, nor a volcano, nor a chaos of

brave men and frantic horses involved in vast explosions of gunpowder.

It was rather a calm rational combination of force against

force.--_Oration on Geo. H. Thomas._

* * * * *

After the fire and blood of the battle-fields have disappeared, nowhere

does war show its destroying power so certainly and so relentlessly as

in the columns which represent the taxes and expenditures of the nation.

[From a Speech, June 2, 1879.]